NORTH LOOP FOOD HALL ANNOUNCES FOOD VENDORS (AND AN OPENING DATE)

Graze Provisions + Libations has officially released their lineup of food vendors (and an opening date) and we think you’re going to love what they have in store.

Graze will officially open the doors to their brand new, two-story 14,000 square foot food hall on Friday, September 6th. The food hall is located at 520 N 4th Street in the North Loop neighborhood and was built upon a site that had sat vacant since the Bookmen Stacks were built in 2005. You can find more information on the building and what it will include be visiting an earlier post of ours here.

So, who exactly will the food vendors be? Here we go.

Honey & Rye Bakehouse, the delicious bakehouse located in St Louis Park, will open their second location in Graze. Honey & Rye bakes artisan breads and pastries daily that are comprised of local ingredients that highlight the changing seasons. The “Everyday Menu” includes multiple types of bread, food such as quiche, sandwiches and salad, pastries like scones, croissants and monkey bread and desserts (think bars, cookies and pies). They also serve a number of delicious coffees and teas which has us guessing that they will be the vendor to fill the ground floor corner space that features a walk-up window. Talk about the perfect addition to your morning commute.

The wildly successful Midnord Empanada Truck will open their first brick-and-mortar space within Graze. Their menu includes a number of different types of empanadas like chimichurri chicken, Cuban pork, rueben, buffalo chicken and even a mac and cheese empanada called the “Mac Attack.” MidNord also serves freshly made salsas and chips and word on the street is the Graze location will also serve churros. Are we in a food a coma already?

Say hello to Soul Bowl. Chef Gerard Klass’ reimagined urban soul food is sure to be a hit at Graze. The menu consists of flavorful, healthy and eye-catching entrees that are pork free and also includes a number of vegetarian/vegan entrees. In many ways, think of the Soul Bowl as the soul food version of Chipotle. You start with a base (mash, mac & cheese, cornbread dressin’ or yellow rice), the choose a veggie (greens, sweet corn, black eye peas, candied yams) and last but not least you choose a meat (smoked chicken, friend chick, braised beef, veggie dinner roast). The menu also has things like a fried chicken sandwich, smoked deviled eggs, lemon pepper mahi mahi and more. We just drooled on our key board.

Craving tacos? Flagsmash will have you covered. They’ll also be opening their first brick-and-mortar store within Graze next month. Flagsmash “is a celebration of tasty food from around the world, crammed into a tortilla.” Now don’t expect your typical tacos from this place. Owner Jaime Gonazales motto is “If it tastes good, put in a taco.”

How does some delicious roast beef prepared over a charcoal fire sound? Well, that’s exactly what you’ll find at Carbon Coal-Fired Pit Beef. Now this vendor we don’t have a ton of information on at the moment but what we do know is that they are already serving some delicious meat around the city. We can’t wait to see what they have in-store for their brick-and-mortar location at Graze.

In need of some Sushi and Ramen? Have no fear because you’re getting two food vendors for this category at Graze. FishBowl Poke and Ramen Kazama will share a single booth and will offer poke bowls during the spring and summer months and then in the fall and winter they’ll switch over to ramen. FishBowl Poke currently has a location on W 34th Street in Minneapolis while Ramen Kazama has two locations in Minneapolis with one being located on Nicollet Avenue and the other on Como Avenue.

Last, but absolutely not least, is Minneapolis’ BEST sandwich shop (literally voted that by People Magazine this year) … Lu’s Sandwich. That’s right, they’ll be opening their FOURTH (if you count the food truck) Minneapolis location within Graze. The North Loop location will be a little different than the others though as instead of serving sandwiches… they’ll serve banh mi burgers and bowls along with spring rolls and eggs rolls. We can’t wait to try one of their burgers because let’s be honest, if they’re anything like the sandwiches we are going to be in banh mi heaven.

Whew, we did it. We got through the list of amazing, LOCAL food vendors that will be setting up shop at Graze Provisions + Libations. Now, let the countdown to September 6th begin.